Mr. Justin Mundy, the Director of International Sustainability of the HRH Prince Wales' Trust, paid a courtesy call on President James Michel today at State House. He was accompanied by the British High Commissioner to Seychelles, Mrs. Lindsay Skoll.

The President welcomed Mr. Mundy to the country and said that today's meeting is follow up on his last fruitful meeting with the HRH the Prince of Wales on the sidelines of the last CHOGM 2013, where besides other issues he also discussed the Blue Bonds initiative aimed at reinforcing marine related activities for sustainability purposes.

"I'm honoured to receive the greetings from His Royal Highness, Prince Charles.  I remember very fondly my meeting with him in Sri Lanka, Colombo in the margins of CHOGM. We have already started implementing the concept of the Blue Economy, with special focus on marine spatial planning and the debt-swap for adaptation scheme.  And we are interested with working with partners such as the Prince's Trust to further develop innovative mechanisms to develop the blue economy such as Blue Bonds," said President Michel.

During the meeting, they discussed ongoing initiatives for the development of the Blue Economy, possible financing to develop the Blue Economy concept, Debt for Adaptation scheme among other topics.

Speaking to the national media after his meeting with the President, Mr. Mundy said that the Royal Highness has a lot of admiration for what President Michel is doing on environmental issues. Furthermore, that they are delighted to be working with President Michel as he has a long track record for demonstrating great leadership on environmental issues and  particularly on the Blue Economy concept.

"We are delighted to be working with the President and the ministerial team, I'm obviously here to help augment some of the work of the Blue Economy that is going forward. You have a lot of capacity and capability.... but it's quite tricky to find out how to bring new finance for sustainable marine fisheries and we're hoping that we can to facilitate some of that," said Mr. Mundy.

Mr. Mundy further explained that his team are trying to help create projects which are sufficiently attractive for different types of investors, institute investors, pension fund, insurance companies, private sectors and banks, which will always focus on marine sustainable fisheries.

Also present at the meeting was the Minister Finance, Trade and the Blue Economy, Mr. Jean-Paul Adam, Principal Secretary for the Blue Economy, Ms. Rebecca Loustau-Lalanne, Chief Press Secretary in the Office of the President, Ms. Srdjana Janosevic, Marine Programme Manager of the International Sustainability Unit, Lucy Holmes and Matthew Harper, Press, Politics and Public Affairs Officer at the British High Commission.

Editor's Note:

-   'Blue Bonds' are a proposed financial vehicle whereby investors are invited to invest in bonds linked to the sustainable development of the fisheries and blue economy in general.